These are the basic components of what I’m getting ready to mail out to seven of the backers who funded the third issue of Taking the Lane zine via Kickstarter an embarrassing number of months ago.
Way back when I was planning the project, I asked Charlie Wicker of Trailhead Coffee Roasters if he wanted to offer some of my funders a sample of his coffee. He said yes. This morning I dropped by his roastery on East Burnside.
Charlie and the Coffeefiets. (Photo by Corky Miller, courtesy of Metrofiets)
I had forgotten exactly where it was and planned to call for directions, but the delicious smells surrounding his building made that unnecessary. I entered the building to a scene of friendly, controlled chaos, with piles and piles of different kinds of roasted beans surrounding interesting looking machines and bicycles angled into every possible space between them all.
Trailhead is some seriously delicious coffee, though it doesn’t always enjoy the same scene cred as Portland’s multiple (!) other small batch, fair trade coffee roasters that have integrated bicycling into their business practices. I won’t lie, I love them all. I wanted to work with Charlie for this project in part because he buys all his coffee from women producers, via a program called Cafe Femenino.
He also delivers all his coffee by bike — and it’s a seriously rad bike. Made by a local custom cargo frame builder, it serves as a double-duty cargo hauler and portable coffeeshop. Being possibly insane and definitely a badass, he rode it 450 hilly miles through rural Oregon last summer.